The Restless
by Wolfriun
Summary: In a new world without rules, two mercenaries are forced to team up against their will to survive against living dead with only one goal: A fresh meal. Alternate Universe. Rated M for violence, coarse language and some gore. No shipping or slash.
1. Chapter 1

His sore feet moved silently over the dusty, dry road like he was a cat hunting for its prey. The warm air was silent and tense, even though he was in the middle of a quite big city. He didn't like being here, he didn't like it at all, but his lips were dry like paper and his stomach growling, sending shots of pain through his body now and then. A dry leaf blew over the road, riding on a rare summer wind which he enjoyed to the fullest, cooling down his sweaty skin for a moment.

It was so silent you could almost hear a fly land on the ground, making him an easy target if he made too much noise. Therefore, he had a bow and a quiver with arrows over his back, a silent weapon with re-usable ammo, but he also had – just in case – a kukri in his belt, which he was resting his hand on, ready to use it if necessary.

With a low sigh, he took of his hat and wiped his forehead with an arm which was normally covered with a red sleeve, but it was now as good as bare, sleeves folded up as much as possible. He walked past a couple of old, broken cars while putting his hat back on. They were mostly empty, some may have contained some old, most likely rotten food; not worth the effort. Broken cars were like traps, if you got in one, you could easily get surrounded, and it would be difficult to get out. Very difficult.

He was searching for a house without broken windows. It wasn't an easy task – most of the windows got broken in the beginning of all this, but he'd spotted one with all intact. Not broken windows usually meant that nobody had been there for a long time, which could also mean there was some canned food somewhere in there. It could also mean someone lived there; it was very rarely – usually people understood that the town was a dangerous place these days – but sometimes people just couldn't stand moving away from the place they'd been living their entire life, or maybe they just felt some sort of safety in not moving.

Approaching the house, he sharpened his senses even more, ready to either run or fight, depending on whom or what he saw. The door was locked, same was the back door. That was a bit unusual, but he had experienced that some people who had evacuated their homes actually had locked all their doors, even though they knew they'd never return. He took a step backwards, readied his right leg and kicked it right under the doorknob. The door made a complaining sound, but except that nothing really happened. There was no way he was giving up, though, so he tried again, this time he standing sideways. It flung open, slamming into the wall on the inside, making much more noise than he appreciated, but at least it was open.

Once inside, he walked through the dusty living room to the kitchen, which he could see through an open door. The lights in the refrigerator didn't work due to the lack of electricity, but it was enough light in the room to see that it was empty, except two water bottles in the bottom. He quickly picked up one, opened it and started drinking the warm water, planning on only drinking half of it.

"Put down that bottle."

The threatening voice was familiar; he instantly knew who it was. He started to turn around, but got stopped by a threat.

"If ya turn around, I'll shoot your brains out."

Sighing, he sat the bottle on the kitchen bench, knowing the person behind him was able to shoot and kill, and he'd most likely kill him without doubt, taking in consideration they'd been enemies for a long time. He could feel the hard muzzle of the gun push against the back of his head, right under his hat.

"If ya shoot me," he said lowly, "they'll hear the shot and come here."

"They didn't come here when they heard ya slammed open that door," the young man with the gun said with a voice oozing of confidence. "Why would they come when they hear a gunshot?"

"It's much louder, ya bloody idiot."

"Heh, you're just tryin' to scare me." It sounded like he tried to seem like he had everything under control, but a tone of insecurity was recognizable. He was afraid of them. But then again, who wasn't?

"Am I?" He laughed lowly. "Have fun fighting them off alone, Scout."

"Okay, just leave, and I won't shoot ya."

"I'm plannin' on it. Jus' put down the gun, and I'll leave."

"Ohhoho, yeah, that's a freakin' brilliant idea, ain't it? I can just put it down, so ya can kill me without havin' to worry 'bout me killin' ya first!"

"Trust me. Put down the gun, let me go, and we'll both live." He was going to add 'happily', but it wasn't much happiness left in the world at this point.

"Trust ya." Scout repeated. "How many times have ya killed me? I don't trust any REDs, and especially not you, Sniper."

That was understandable. Sniper had killed Scout many times, just like the other had killed him many times. They'd been hired as mercenaries on two different teams in the past, RED and BLU, fighting each other for some land. Thanks to a complicated technology, they had been able to "respawn" as long as they had been in the range of the system. It didn't work now, though, and a bullet to the head would mean a permanent death.

"I have no reason to trust ya either," he said lowly, a plan forming in his head. If he could just turn quickly enough around, he would be able to grab the other's hand and twist it, making him drop the gun.

That was exactly what he did. It would have worked perfectly, if it wasn't for Scout getting so surprised. A second after Sniper had grabbed his hand, he pulled the trigger. It fired with a sound louder than they both had expected, causing both of them to jump from the shock. The bullet had missed Sniper; instead it hit the lamp in the roof, showering them both with tiny glass shards. There was no way they hadn't heard the shot, soon the place would be full of creatures with only one goal: a fresh meal.

"Great job," he hissed angrily, picking up the young man's gun from the floor. "Soon the place will be crawlin' with 'em. I'm outta here."

"This is your fault!" Scout was yelling in frustration, apparently forgetting about their situation. "If ya didn't do it so damn sudden, I wouldn't have pulled the trigger, ya retarded dipshit!"

Cursing and swearing, he didn't notice the woman slowly approaching him from behind, but Sniper did. She might have been beautiful once, but now her skin was rotten with a grey-green tone, her lips gone and her blonde hair was just some chunks here and there. The dead woman moaned lowly, pulling one leg after her. Without a word, Sniper took a grip on his bow, laid an arrow on it and got ready to shoot.

"Hey, there ain't no reason to fucking shoot me, I ain't even holdin' the freakin' gun. If ya wanna go, just go!"

A moment later, the arrow was stuck in the woman's head, directly in between her eyes. She fell to the ground, groaning for a moment before shutting up. Scout shut up as well, turning quickly around to look at the dead. For once, he didn't have any clever comments; he just carefully kicked the woman's head as to check if she still was alive, or at least moving. It'd been quite a while since she'd been alive.

"Holy shit, dude!" Scout looked up at Sniper with a terrified look. "Ya almost shot me!"

Sniper didn't answer; he just pulled out the arrow from the dead's skull and started walking towards the door. It was open; he'd forgotten to close it when he went in, a big mistake. The air outside was filled with a heavy, rotten smell, and there were rotten people as far as he could see. He stepped backwards in shock, not having expected _that _many. They limped towards the door, one of them almost inside. Sniper drew his kukri, and with a quick slash, he separated the dead man's head from his body. It landed on the floor with a thump, right in front of a horrified Scout, who kept cursing and babbling about God knew what.

A massive wave of moaning and groaning came from the dead outside, loud enough to be heard even when he closed the door. Still calm, Sniper went to the kitchen and got the water bottles. He threw one of them to Scout, telling him to go get what he couldn't stand to leave behind. The boy was back a couple moments later, with a bag over his blue-shirted shoulders, looking up at the older man, waiting for the plan.

As there were fewer on this side of the house, Sniper silently opened the slide door out to the terrace and waved for the other, but he didn't follow him.

"Why the hell would I follow _you_?"

Sniper sighed irritated. "If ya stay here, ya'll get eaten alive. If ya follow me, maybe ya'll survive. Yer choice." Without another word, he readied his bow, hoping to not have to use it too much; it would be difficult to get the arrows back. He went out, seeing the other following him in the corner of his eye. There were seven – eight of them out here, two which was limping slowly towards Sniper, groaning lowly. The bow squeaked a bit when he pulled it, aiming the arrow at the closest.

Three bullets hit its head, spraying him with rotten blood and other materials that should stay in a cranium. The others turned quickly around, all of them starting to close up. After being paralyzed from the surprise of suddenly being covered with goo for a moment, he suddenly realised the situation he was in. Furious at the other for having shot without it being necessary, he started running away from the house with the bow ready, knowing the blue-shirted would follow him.

"Hey, wait up!" The shout was barely audible through the sound of the mass of living dead moving from the back of the house, almost surrounding them at this point. Sniper didn't do it; he knew the Scout was much faster than him, making him perfectly able to catch up.

The car made an ugly noise when he got on it with two big leaps before jumping over the two dead reaching for him. He lost his balance for a moment, almost falling at one reaching out for him, but he kept running, hearing the car complain again as Scout followed what he did. They weren't surrounded anymore, but the dead kept appearing, slowly approaching from the other streets.

He could hear Scout running beside him, most likely holding his speed since he didn't know where they were going. His lungs were starting to hurt as he wheezed for air, running as fast as he could. The camper was parked right on the outside of the town; there was no way he could keep this pace the entire way, he wasn't a runner unlike the other. But he had to try, within minutes this place would be filled with rotten people. One of them ducked up from behind a car, growling lowly as it limped towards him. He readied his bow, aimed, and…

Once more, he got covered with rotten intestines and blood. It was apparently impossible for Scout to let his pistol rest for ten seconds; he probably didn't realize how difficult it was to get more ammo nowadays. Sniper put away his bow; it wasn't necessary when he was with someone this trigger-happy, and it was easier to run without having to worry about it.

It was a way too warm day for this. His shirt was sticking to his chest, wet with sweat, and his feet hurt. He could see his camper parked about a hundred metres away, soon they would be safe. Stomach stinging, he was forced to slow down, almost collapsing on the ground. Finally, he was next to the camper. Just as he was going to open it, he heard a desperate yell from Scout.

"_Sniper!"_

He whirled around, just to see the other being surrounded by dead. The boy shot some of them, but they were way too many; there was no way for him to get alive from it by himself. If Sniper left him behind, it would be much easier to escape; they would be busy devouring a fresh meal. But then again, even though he hated the other, there was no way he wanted anyone to die that way.

"I'm goin' to regret this," he mumbled when he ran towards the groaning group of living dead.


	2. Chapter 2

The first head fell to the ground with a disgusting sound as it splattered over the ground like a very rotten and human-like tomato; it had most likely been incredibly rotten, only held together by a fragile skull. The next head was sliced in two, so was the third. But even with these four gone, they just kept coming, an endless horde of living dead, a mass of rotten flesh, dead but alive. They made the air smell like flesh rotting in the sun, which was exactly what it was. Flesh on moving bodies, rotting as they walked, ate and searched for food. The stench was unbelievable, he'd been surrounding by the rotting people before, smelling their stench, but this was intense, stronger than he'd ever felt.

All of them tried their best to get a grasp of the BLU Scout who was desperately waving around with a bulky aluminium bat. By pure chance, he hit a couple of them, even though he was probably blinded by the nasty mix of blood and brain which was covering his face. None of his efforts were of any use, the one he'd hit got back up again fairly quickly – he'd only hit their shoulders or bodies, which didn't kill them. They'd go after you until their head was either separated from their body or their brain was destroyed; either by a solid headshot or smashing the in the skull.

The blood did not only cover his face. His blue shirt was now more or less red, one of the colours he hated the most. To be honest, it wasn't just _one of the_ colours he hated the most; it was _the_ colour he hated the most. Not because of some anti-communist thoughts, but because of his backstory, which included being shot, burned, beat up, decapitated or some other way of getting killed by men in red if he was unable to get rid of them first. How ironic it was that the man who saved him from the moving mass of rotten flesh and bones was wearing the colour, that he was one of the men that had killed him several times a week in the past, that he was the man he hated the most.

With a newly sharpened Kukri, the red shirted man, Sniper, hacked and slashed like crazy, blinded by the nightmare-like haze that fogged his eyes, the adrenaline pumping through his body and the goo that made his eyes beg to close, but he forced him open, ignoring the pain and tears that built up to was the redness away. Whenever the sharp blade hit some flesh, it made an incredibly satisfying sound which made him laugh like a madman as he did the impossible. It was such a relief for all the frustration and hate that had built up during the solitary days – sneaking around to avoid confrontation with a battle he was doomed to lose – to finally do the impossible: Killing the dead.

A sharp pain spread from a point at his back head ripped him out of the madness and made him stumble a bit forward, almost falling in the hands of a little girl with a big, rotten grin and one leg. In one motion, he twisted around and chopped her head off. It fell down right next to her now dead – as in not moving anymore – body. Now that his adrenaline kick was more or less over, and his madness had ended, he felt like he had had his dose of head-slicing and killing for the day. Therefore, he turned around, grabbed he boy's wrist and pulled him towards where the row of dead was thinnest. They fought their way through, and more or less stumbled towards the campervan.

When they got in, he couldn't stop himself from making a face when they stained the seats. Of everything he could think of in this situation, from the very hateable person in the passenger seat to the dead hammering on the car doors, trying to get in, he thought about _stained car seats._ This situation was so absurd; he chuckled while twisting the car keys. It always took three times to start it up, so he didn't really worry when it didn't work at the first try.

"Why the hell are you laughin'?!" Scout yelled hysterically, looking desperately around for an escape route. "Your freakin' van ain't workin' and you're _laughin'?"_

Twisting the keys a second time, Sniper decided to ignore the other. He wasn't really laughing anymore, though, the seriousness of the situation finally overwrote the seriousness of stained car seats, no matter how attached he was to his vehicle.

"Come on! Start it up!"

"I am," he said calmly, twisting the keys for the third time, finally starting it up. With a triumphant grin, he wiped his face with a hand and drove off, hitting a couple of moaning deads.

"Woo, yeah!" The boy laughed happily and gave the finger to the group that had surrounded them. "Screw you, deadies, screw all of you!"

His joy was short-lived, though, after ten minutes his hateful look was back again. Now and then he threw some glances that could be best described as disgusted at Sniper, but he mostly sat and stared out of the window with a face that indicated he'd rather been eaten alive than sit in that seat and look out of the window.

"Don't think I'm here because I like you," he said after some time. "Or because I need your help or anythin'."

"Then why are ya here, mate? I never forced ya to follow me."

"Because you made the freakin' dead guys attack my house, that's why! And I ain't your mate."

"Oh, so_ I_ did that, huh?" He asked, irritated at Scout's stubbornness. "It was my non-existing pistol-shots that made them come."

"Well, if you hadn't attacked me –" The Bostonian raised his voice, and was now more or less yelling at the other.

"_Attacked ya?_ I never attacked ya, ya little incompetent twat, I _saved ya._ Ya'd been dead – or worse, one of _them_ – now if I hadn't stepped in and saved yer sorry little butt."

"Well… I… Uh…" Scout didn't sound like he had any arguments for a change, so he ended up staring angrily out of the window again.

"If ya don't want to be here, jus' tell me, and I'll drop ya off," Sniper said lowly, quite fond of his idea. Having the BLU around would most likely lead to trouble sooner or later, as he was most likely quite reckless and foolhardy, if his experience with Scouts applied to this fella, which it most likely did, even though his experience was mostly around his Scout, the RED one.

The RED Scout. Thinking of him sent a sting of pain through his chest, like thinking of the rest of his team did. He – they, was gone. Gone forever. They'd kept on fighting together, but lost one after one, some of them dying in front of him, he'd seen one of his best friends being torn apart, crying for death, until he finally had manned up to shoot an arrow through his heart. He'd killed a friend, a person he'd loved. It had been a wish, and he'd done it, he'd followed his friend's last wish. It was awful to think about, making him want to puke.

But the Scout… Scout had been by his side until his very end, fighting and killing deads mercilessly, a good partner in a war against the worst odds of all time. They had spent nights under the stars together after the others were gone, watching the stars shine brightly and talk lowly about the old days, seeking comfort in each other. It was during one of these nights it had happened. They hadn't been observant enough of the sounds around them, which made them fail to hear the low moan from a deads slowly approaching them from behind.

"Yeah, that's a freakin' smart idea, ain't it? Just drop me off just like that, without anywhere to go. I guess you'll at least get rid of me!" The sound of the BLU Scout's voice, which was irritatingly too resembling _his_ Scout's voice, ripped him out of his memories. "Is that your plan? To fucking save me just to kill me off after?"

"I was –" he started; just to get interrupted.

"Nah, I'll stick around until I find Ma, then I'll let you keep on livin' your sad little camping life."

"Yer mum," he repeated with a low laugh, "of all the people ya want to find, it's yer mum."

"I ain't got nobody left to trust," Scout said with a voice that seemingly sounded tough, but had an undertone of sadness, "nobody but her."

"And ya don't even know if she's alive, huh?" He knew he was being mean and rotten, but he couldn't stand the other's cockiness and resemblance to the one he'd lost. "That's a pity, ain't it?"

There was no response from the other; he was too busy pretending he was busy with looking out of the window again. It was so silent in the camper now; the only sound was from the engine, whose monotone sound made the silence feel even more silent. The warm, heavy air smelled like cigarettes, as he never really bothered to open the window anymore when smoking after he lost his Scout, and sweat from the two mercenaries. An empty water bottle fell down from the dashboard with a low thump, it had been filled just a couple of minutes earlier; the boy, who now found it fun to step on it so it crunched loudly, must have drunk it all up without even thinking a second about sharing the precious drops. A tingling spread in his arms, making him want to reach out and hit the other for thinking so little, but he managed to resist, mainly because he had spotted something that could mean safety for some time, if they were lucky.

A couple of branches snapped when they drove off the road onto a small, forgotten old path, barely able to drive on. Hopefully, it led to somewhere safe they could stay until tomorrow, living on the few cans of food he had left; he didn't really want to sneak around in a new town today. The camper rocked like crazy, making everything bounce around, like Scout's head, which slammed violently against the window with a loud bang, making the owner curse loudly.

"Hey, take it easy!" He glanced furiously at the driver. "That freakin' hurt!"

Sniper didn't respond him, but a little sadistic-like voice inside him laughed at the other's pain at the same time as he felt horribly guilty for it. Scout hadn't really done anything wrong, had he? Oh, wait, he had. If it weren't for him, he would probably have had more food now, more food and fresh water. Besides, there was no reason to respond to any of the other's complaints, there was always something he could complain about, and when there was, he was sure to grab the opportunity. At least his Scout had been like that in the beginning. Maybe this brat would learn it afterwards, too. Maybe.

The road stopped at a little cabin next to a tiny lake. After parking the camper so it would be easy to get away if necessary, he jumped out with his bow ready, focusing every sense he got after danger, but the only things moving was the grass and the small waves on the lake, and the only sounds were the birds chirping in the trees. The chirping was a relatively good sign; all animals seemed to be afraid of the dead, causing the areas with them to be scarily silent. Allowing himself to relax, he lowered the bow a bit.

"What the fuck is this place anyway?" Scout's voice pierced the peace like a needle popping a balloon, starting him so much his heart stopped for a couple of seconds. On pure instinct, he turned quickly around and pulled the arrow back, pointing it at the boy, who raised his hands, eyes filled with shock. "What the hell, dude? Do I look like one of _them _to you, huh?"

Sniper didn't lower his bow. It would take time to get used to this Scout compared to his Scout. They weren't very different on the surface, but his Scout had learned things during the time they'd been partners, like not sneaking up on him from behind. But no matter how annoying the young blue-shirted man was, he filled the empty space the RED runner had like nobody else would do. It wasn't the same, though, not the same at all, but it was something.

"All right, I'll help ya find yer mother," he said lowly, still aiming the arrow at the other's head. "But only if ya follow some simple rules."

"All right, just lower your freakin' bow!"

"Rule number one: Absolutely _no_ sneakin' up on me from behind, unless ya want an arrow in yer head."

"Fine, fine." He carefully reached out a hand to move the arrow away from his face, but Sniper shook it off with a little move.

"Rule two: Do as I say, no matter what."

No response, just a hateful glance.

"And last, rule three: If somethin' I say seems weird to ya, or if ya feel like not doin' what I say, refer to rule two."

"No way, man. I ain't doin' everythin' you say."

"Then go and find yer mother alone." He lowered his bow and slung it over his shoulder, walking towards the back of the camper so he could get in; he was getting quite hungry. When opening the door, he heard one word that made him smile a bit before getting in.

"Fine."


End file.
